- Hacker made off with 119.2 ETH
- The criminal started draining the actor’s personal wallet at around 19:00 ET on Thursday
After Bill Murray’s NFT auction closed on Thursday, a hacker stole around $185,000 raised for charity. The criminal started draining the actor’s personal wallet at around 19:00 ET on Thursday, according to details from his team and on-chain data from Etherscan.
The unknown perpetrator also tried to steal NFTs from the actor’s personal collection, CoinDesk wrote.
Protected from the worst
The case shows how even famous people aren’t immune to crypto-related crime. In the actor’s case, things could have been a lot worse, which his wallet security team protected him from.
The actor’s most valuable NFTs were shielded by NFT consultancy and security firm Project Venkman. These included two CryptoPunks, a Damien Hirst NFT, a few Flower Girls, and a Cool Cat. They were moved to a pair of safehouse wallets.
The firm also thwarted the hacker’s attempt to steal 800 NFTs from the actor’s collection that were sitting in the wallet by moving them to a safehouse. They moved the NFTs automatically by running a script.
Hacker made off with 119.2 ETH
Venkman was unable to protect the funds, though. The hacker stole the ether raised the day before the auction, then sent the funds to an address linked to Binance crypto exchange and Unionchain.ai. The criminal has not been identified.
Another altruist steps in
Coinbase user Mishap72, a runner-up in the auction, sent 120 ETH to Chive Charities to replace the lost funds, a marketplace representative said.
Murray’s team filed a police report and is cooperating Chainalysis crypto analytics firm to find and bring the hacker to justice.
